


stolen from the night sky

by royalgreen (allyoop)



Series: Fictober 2020 [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambition, Essek is making some questionable decisions in his persuit of magical experiments, Fae & Fairies, Fictober 2020, First Meetings, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Internal Monologue, Magic, Magic Revealed, Magic and Science, Magical Artifacts, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Secrets, author is setting up some interesting threads about fate and coincidence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26847442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyoop/pseuds/royalgreen
Summary: Essek had solved it. The most ambitious magical pursuit of his life so far...and he had finally solved it.But there was just one piece missing, one straggler of a component.Essek needed stardust.Stardust that was /still alive/.
Relationships: (or at least the set up for it), Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Series: Fictober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954570
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	stolen from the night sky

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober prompt #2 : stardust

{thirty solar years ago}

Essek understood that what he was planning could be considered  _ r _ eckless endangerment , or it would be if it wasn’t  _ him _ planning it. He’s attempted spells before that were adjacent in nature, even if not quite at the same strength, and he was certain he knew the theory precisely and accurately.

The only true lingering problem was one of components.

Essek needed stardust.

He had already poked around his own lab, in-disguise around town, and even sent a few coded messages to his less than above board contacts. In a fit of frustration he had re-read six tomes of arcana and triple checked his already-scrutinized spellwork. There was no getting around it. Meteorite shavings did not work, attempts with star ruby spell gems did nothing, even a mote of pure energized light was no replacement. The spell needed stardust, freshly collected and as close to  _ alive _ as it could be. Essek was confident in his own power, and graviturgy was a delightful field of study, but he could not possibly be expected to yank down a star from the very sky just to use for a component?

Perhaps that’s why this particular magical feat had never been attempted before; it required a long life of patience to wait until a star fell your way, or the power to rearrange fate into a more favorable position.

Essek left the familiar space of his lab to head up to his observatory. If he had to pace fruitlessly while pondering this problem, he might as well have a more pleasing visual. He strode up his stairs to the highest point of his tower, stepping outside the lab space onto the narrow balcony that surrounded the top. From here he had a full view of the spread of the city beneath him, lamplights bright among the ever-darkness. Above him it was mirrored, distant pinpricks of stars scattered across the sky, twinkling in a frustratingly joyful way. Essek could be patient. He had centuries ahead of him, perhaps more. He gripped the edge of the banister, the cold metal sharp under his palms. He had not gotten to where he was now by waiting on something to randomly click into place. As he watched the slow turn of the interlooped rings that charted the ley lines of magic in the world, he knew what he had to do and  _ how _ .

He pushed back inside his tower, raising his arm as he did so. One quick movement later and he pulled his spellbook from the air and into his hand. Essek felt he was stacking risk onto risk in his pursuit of this goal, but if he was correct (and many years of life had taught him that he usually was) then with adding this spell he could trade centuries of waiting for mere decades. 

He stepped into the middle of the room where the carved sigils and runes on the floor were most concentrated. A stripe of crushed agate here, a dusting of fossilized wood, bones of a mouse trapped in amber set in the middle, and then Essek stood above his little pile with a forked metal tool in hand. With a sharp burst of power, he struck his metal rod into the pile like a match and the components burst into flame. The bright red only lasted a split second before the flames rolled into yellow, pure white, and then into a simmering grey. Essek kept his hand to the illusory fire to ensure an even burn across the tool in his hand, clenching his teeth from the unsettling chill of the spell, until the last of the flames flickered out with a last dusty gasp.

He stood up straight, turning the rod over in his hands. The once-gold metal and burnished into an iridescent black that seemed to eat up the light in his room. He stepped out into the night air once again, keeping his eyes on the sky above. He raised the tool up, and without looking away from the stars on the horizon, flicked the fork. Essek could feel the rod reverberate in his hand, but the sound was too high for even his ears to pick up on. He held the fork skyward until the very last of the tremors in the metal stopped.

Essek sighed. That was the easy part.

Now he had to wait.

  
  


{present day}

  
  


It had become a habit. Every day before meditating Essek would traverse the familiar steps up his tower, and up and up until he reached the highest point. He would step outside onto the balcony (now since widened for easier access) and walk a slow circle around his ever-swirling ley links to observe the night sky. He would hold his fork in his hand as he paced, hoping that tonight the rod would ring again.

At this point it  _ had _ been decades of waiting. And while Essek had grown accustomed and somewhat fond of his slow nightly stroll around his observatory, there was the smallest nagging voice that perhaps in the overconfidence of his youth he had performed the spell wrong.

He was beginning to believe those thoughts tonight. He continued his circular pace, the rod loose in his hand, and instead he started to ponder improvements, experiments, and another attempt….

Essek dropped the rod suddenly as he was utterly shaken from his thoughts. He picked it quickly back up, bringing it up to eye level. Even if the trembling metal in his hand wasn’t confirmation enough, he could see that the fork element of the rod was ringing, and the glossy black surface seemed to shift and warp.

A star was nearby. 

He scanned the horizon quickly. It was possible he had been distracted, or facing the wrong way, and had missed the telltale streak of light. But the fork would tell him, it would point him the right way. Essek floated down his stairs, opting to put on an illusion disguise rather than wasting any time with his mantle as he rushed out his door. The rod was singing under his hand, the metal growing warmer as it rang. Some force of power was pulling him down this path, guiding his movements left, right, right again, as he hurried through the city. He felt magnetized and the fork was yanking him towards the very thing he had sought. The missing piece of his spell. The  _ final _ piece.

In a matter of minutes he was outside of the Lucid Bastion. Essek knew in his disguise he would not be let past the guards, he would have to switch to Shadowhand Thelyss if he wanted to venture inside. It wasn’t that unusual for the Shadowhand to arrive at the Bastion very late or very early, depending on what work needed to be done. The magnetic pull of his path was almost forcing his hand out in front of him, so Essek snapped his generic drow disguise off and pulled his mantle from his pocket dimension. It took a moment longer than usual, as he did not want to let go of the trembling metal fork for even a second, but with the Shadowhand persona firmly reaffixed, Essek swept into the Bastion and started down its labyrinthine halls. 

He floated as briskly as he could without catching attention, but his giddy anticipation sped him through salon after salon, the wind of his movement sweeping his mantle out behind him. He only paused when he heard noisy overlapping voices, accents he couldn't quite place, and most interestingly all speaking Common. 

Essek slowed and peered around the corner, the fork tremors shaking up his wrist and into his forearm now. He caught the tail end of a group being led past the double doors at the end of the hall, into the antechamber before the court of the Queen. Even at this distance his eyes were drawn immediately to the two _ humans _ in the ragtag group. It was extremely unusual to see in Rosohna. He had just seconds to catalogue all he could see before they disappeared behind the tall doors. Essek’s gaze flitted last to the human male, bright red hair catching his attention. 

The vibrations in his hand surged in intensity, making him have to pull away from the wall in fear of involuntarily knocking against it. Essek could barely hold the rod anymore. It wanted him to go  _ forward _ and  _ now _ . 

Even as he was conjuring up a plausible excuse to enter the antechamber, a message rang through and interrupted his mind. It was a summons. The Bright Queen had called a meeting of the full court within the hour.

Essek summoned his full concentration and opened his dimension and forced himself to drop the fork within. He could not have that distracting him or alerting any prying eyes. He did not need questions about his private affairs, especially not about this one. He drifted back down the hall from where he came and his thoughts pondered that odd group of strangers and the redhead human. Essek did not believe in coincidences, and so the meeting must involve these people. And the fork...it’s pull had definitely directed his hand in their direction.

He had many questions ( _ how did such commoners stumble upon a star? what would they want it for? how were they containing it’s essence alive, and not letting it fall chill and inert as stone? _ ), but all answers seemed to point, once again, to patience. 

The star was still potent, he was sure of it, and it was within hand's reach somewhere in the Bastion. This was the closest he had ever been to his goal. Essek couldn't stop the uncharacteristic grin from spreading across his face. 

Nothing could stop him now.

**Author's Note:**

> Holding myself accountable for fictober by posting them to ao3 in a timely manner :)
> 
> This one would have been done on actual day 2 if I wasn't distracted by writing a new chapter of a different fic, haha.
> 
> Thanks for every comment, kudos, and encouragement as always.
> 
> (As always, feel free to follow me on [tumblr](https://caleb-says-nein.tumblr.com/) for more critrole shenanigans)


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